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E-Plus to trial TD-LTE using equipment from ZTE

Germany's E-Plus said it plans to trial TD-LTE this quarter using 2.6 GHz spectrum, joining the growing number of operators and vendors supporting TD-LTE.

The company said the trial will have the full support of China Mobile, which is a keen advocate of TD-LTE. Chinese vendor ZTE will supply the SDR base station equipment.

The TD version of LTE received a significant boost at last week's Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, with the launch of the Global TD-LTE Initiative that has the backing of China Mobile, Bharti Airtel, Softbank, Vodafone Clearwire and E-Plus, among others.

Commenting on the future of TD-LTE, Thorsten Robrecht, head of LTE Radio access product management at Nokia Siemens Networks, told Telecoms.com that the technology was emerging as a solution with a much wider range of potential applications. "TD-LTE is really a global LTE solution, I'm very sure about this. It has evolved so much over recent months and now I'm seeing it appearing in all sorts of countries."

E-Plus will have to use the 2.6 GHz spectrum band for the trial. The company acquired the spectrum in spectrum auctions held last May after having failed to acquire the more valuable 800 MHz band.